1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related generally to online auctions, and more particularly to buyer side bidding tools.
2. Related Art
One of the first widely popular website types facilitated by widespread user access to the Internet, is the online auction site. Online auctions, initially in the business to consumer (B2C) space, such as, e.g., EBAY, and Yahoo!Auctions enable many consumer clients with a computer and an Internet Service provider (ISP) account, to participate as a buyer (i.e., bidder user, or member), or seller (or biddee) in an auction. With the advent of business to business (B2B) electronic commerce auction sites such as, e.g., Freemarkets, business buyers in a procurement department can similarly bid on, e.g., supplies, parts, and vendor equipment.
Conventionally, online auctions can occur 24 hours per day, seven days per week. Unfortunately, a bidder is not able to monitor the status of an auction continually. It is desirable that tools to automate the bidding process be made available to bidders. Unfortunately, auction sites also continually create countermeasures to make it difficult to automate bidding.
Conventional auctions include bidding rules and bidding parameters. Unfortunately, bidding rules and parameters can change from time to time.
Conventionally, tools designed to automate the bidding process for a bidder (i.e., on the buy side) have been standalone workstation software based and lack various desirable features. Unfortunately, as bidding rules and parameters change and counter measures are added, the standalone software based tools no longer work. Thus, it is desirable that an improved tool be provided that overcomes the shortcomings of conventional solutions.